Because you’re growing indoors, when your plants begin to flower is almost wholly dependent on when you want the plants to flower. Of course, you want them to flower when the buds are at their highest potency.
It’s feasible to keep a marijuana plant in a vegetative state for up to 10 years, but those plants certainly won’t be potent by the end of such a long lifespan.
Before you induce flowering, make sure you know which plants are male and which ones are female.
1. Determin the sex
In general, marijuana plants start to “pre-flower” before you even manipulate them to flower. During this time, they will exhibit subtle signs of their sex. Male plants will generally start to pre-flower earlier than females (by around two weeks).
You’ll notice the male plants growing taller than the females. They also might develop sacs that resemble buds but aren’t actually buds. The reason the male plants grow faster and taller than the female plants is so they can pollinate them. The pollen in the sacs (or false buds) will drop down onto the females to start the pollination process.
By contrast, the female plant will enter the pre-flowering stage by producing white, hairy growths at the nodes and on the top cola (the head). These are called pistils, and they are what attract the male pollen to the female plant.
There’s really no surefire way to determine the sex of your plants until they start exhibiting these telltale signs. You can, however, take a cutting from one of the plants and plant it in an area separate from your garden.
Cloning
The cutting is basically a clone of its “mother” plant and will share the exact same genetic structure. You can then force the clone to flower, causing it to definitively start to show signs of its sex. Then, you can go back to your garden and label each plant that you do this for.
Many growers want to determine the sex as soon as possible because the female plants will naturally produce a much better high. That’s not to say that the males are useless, but you still want to distinguish between the two so that you know what you have.
Sinsemilla
This is particularly true for growers who want “sinsemilla” buds. Sinsemilla literally means “without seed” in Spanish and, if the males are not allowed to pollinate the females, the plants will not produce any seeds.
These seedless female plants are considerably more potent than their counterparts because they focus more attention on THC production and bud growth rather than on producing seeds. In fact, you can practically see the THC resin dripping off their buds.
Of course, you’ll need to take out the male plants early to produce these types of buds. If you rely on your own garden for seeds for next year’s harvest, then this probably wouldn’t be a good idea. As mentioned before, buying seeds from a dealer or even a seed-bank is often a random grab bag.
You don’t know what the seeds will become, and receiving a full batch of males is not outside the realm of possibility. Letting your male plants pollinate the female plants will provide you with plenty of seeds, and you won’t have to pay for them.
2.Hermaphroditic plants
It is also possible to end up with hermaphroditic plants, which are basically just plants that have both sets of reproductive organs. Thus, they might exhibit early signs of both male and female plants.
Stress can cause Hermaphrodite marijuana plants. Most growers also eliminate these plants from their crop even if they want to pollinate the females. While they are self-pollinating, they will only ever produce hermaphroditic plants, and they might even pollinate some non-hermaphroditic plants.
It might seem like the best of both worlds, but the potency will be limited in these plants. It should also be noted that male plants aren’t useless in terms of smoking either. They can still produce a little bit of a high and can also be used in culinary preparations. However, it’s critical to take out the males if you want to grow sinsemilla marijuana. One male marijuana plant can pollinate hundreds of females.
3. How to force flowering
Now that you know how to check for the signs of male and female plants, the next step is getting them to flower properly. Just remember that, once you start flowering, it might be difficult to stop the males from pollinating the females if you haven’t removed them.
Even if you segregate the plants by their sex, the air still might carry some of the pollen tothe female pistils. It’s really a decision between whether you want hyper-potent buds for this year only or to keep growing your favorite strain without having to pay for new seeds. (Most personal growers will want to stick with the latter option because paying for your own seeds every year can be costly).
In any event, if you want to force flowering, all you have to do is put the plants on a 12-12 light regimen. That essentially means that you’ll need to leave the lights on for only about 12 hours per day and turn them off for the remaining 12 hours.
The room should be kept as dark as possible during the 12-hour dark period. Turning off the lights won’t always do the trick, especially if there are other light sources nearby. In fact, even shining a flashlight on the plants for a few minutes at a time during the dark period can keep them in vegetative growth. If you have windows in your grow room, do your best to block them out, especially if the Flowering week 3 Flowering week 6 Flowering week 8 47 sun comes up before the 12-hour period is over. If your lights came equipped with a timer, then it’s a good idea to set that so you don’t have to worry about manually turning the lights on and off every 12 hours.
You’ll notice that the female plants will start to grow larger as the flowering period progresses. They will grow more branches, buds, and flowers, and the plant will begin to produce more THC overall. The plants will take on a sort of cone shape that resembles a Christmas tree, and you might even start to smell a distinctive fruity or smoky aroma.
Their pistils will change from their whitish color to a darker shade (generally brown, red, or orange); at that point, they should be ripe enough for picking. Even if you want to pollinate your female plants, you might consider removing the male plants post-pollination so that the females have more room to flourish.
The plants start to flower when the light and dark periods are both 12 hours long because they are genetically programmed to do so. If you plant outdoors (more on that later), you’ll find that the plants will start to flower naturally when daylight begins to dwindle in the fall.
